Thursday, July 07, 2005

Pickoff Moves

The Games Won On Luck: Dodgers 9, Rockies 5

With the core of the club sidelined, manager Jim Tracy sent out a lineup lacking in experience and name recognition but not desire or effort, and it came away with a 9-5 win over the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field that tightened up the National League West Division.

This is the kind of thing you expect to read if you're on the Pirates website.

...[T]hey've just about all played elsewhere. Perez is already with his fourth organization, but this is his first full season in the Major Leagues. The Dodgers are Robles' fourth organization as well, which doesn't count the five years he was playing in the Mexican League. Phillips was unloaded by the Mets for Kazuhisa Ishii in the spring.

Well, "unloaded" isn't maybe the best expression for Phillips; it was a case of the Mets needing another starter. It wasn't like the Dodger collected him from the waiver wire. But clearly, Robles has no place on a major league team hoping to contend. Antonio Perez was a light-hitting stopgap at third, or maybe a longer-term solution at second base.

But anyway. The point I'm trying to make here is that now that the Dodgers have split a series, everything starts to take on the patina of "heroic". With the Bad News Bears lineups they've been putting out there, the temptation towards journalistic hyperbole will inevitably suck some writers into the abyss. The psychic toll of losing that many games does strange things. If the team had been healthy, this would have been one of those games you would have said to yourself, the Dodgers won this one by luck. Antonio Perez hitting a home run? Please. Oh, wait, it's Colorado.

Phew! Angels 7, Twins 6

GA can still pick 'em. That 7-2 double play saved the game, and more, the Angels' left fielder popped a three-run dinger to haul the Angels over the Twins. Battling back and forth the whole time, it was one of those games you watch between your fingers, not unlike the second game of the 2002 World Series. And despite the fact that the Twins aren't on top of their division this year, it sure felt like a playoff game. I wrote Batgirl about it, and I got the impression she's eager to see this series done with too, though not for the same reasons: the Twins get to play the Royals next.

Bobby Jenks Performs

Rogers Apologizes

I was never comfortable with the comments his lawyer made about Kenny Rogers feeling contrite about the camera episode, which means I'm pleased to see him apologize in person:

"I feel compelled to come before you and express my deep regret for my actions," Rogers said. "This incident was completely out character, and I think without question that you know that it will never happen again."

No doubt he actually had some sense knocked into him by both the Rangers and MLB, not to mention Scott Boras; players who go this badly wrong have a habit of finishing their careers with the Devil Rays or in some other similar asylum.

"The Angels are a great organization," Jenks added. "But I think this is the right path for me."

No tantrums. That's surprisingly classy from a guy who's had the "headcase" label justifiably attached to him for several years now. I wish him all the luck in the world -- except when he's playing the Angels, which actually could happen this year in the postseason, and once more in the regular season -- there is one more series against the Chisox in September.

It wasn't the "headcase" label that soured the Angels on Jenks (if you can even say they "soured") - it was the injuries. He's actually been on his best behavior for the past couple of years, since becoming a father.